Business Tries to Stop San Diego's Minimum Wage Hike

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-08-21/business-tries-to-stop-san-diegos-minimum-wage-hike

Labor activists celebrated on Aug. 18, when San Diego’s Democratic-led city council overrode a mayoral veto and raised the minimum wage to $11.50 an hour. The council also guaranteed workers as many as five days of paid sick leave a year. The vote seemed like a decisive victory over Republican Mayor Kevin Faulconer. “The city council is standing up and demonstrating that we value honest work and fair pay,” its president, Todd Gloria, said after the vote.

Yet even before the raise became city law, business groups, including the California Restaurant Association and the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, were already mobilizing a campaign to reverse the council’s decision through a referendum. They created the San Diego Small Business Coalition, which is headed by Jason Roe, a political consultant to the mayor. Lobbyists, including one hired by the American Hotel & Lodging Association, have also been involved. The group has 30 days from the council’s vote—until Sept. 17—to collect the almost 34,000 signatures required to put the issue before voters. They may end up spending as much as $500,000 to pay people to canvass door-to-door and outside supermarkets. It’s too late to make the ballot for this year’s congressional midterms, so even if proponents get the necessary support, the referendum likely won’t appear on the ballot until the next general election, in 2016. Until then, the pay raise would be on hold.

 

This is getting play on the local news.

It isn't MacDonalds they show, but ma and pop shops with a handful of employees. They say they'll be forced out of business.

 

I saw this earlier today. Coincidence.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/liya-palagashvili-do-higher-minimum-wages-create-more-jobs-1408577121

 

Good thing there's 99 weeks of unemployment, right?

 

The state already approved a minimum wage increase. This $11.50 is above and beyond the state requirement.

I took economics too. What I learned is that if a product has a higher price, the demand for it goes down. For small businesses that are barely making it, higher price is only going to add to their problems.

I am stunned to walk down the main drag in my town, a destination resort town and college town in the offseason, to see numerous storefronts empty. The economy is clearly rocking, so let's add more burden on businesses.

 

Industrial and storefront occupancy rates are not the same thing, are they?

 

You should take the advanced course, where they teach you that demand for some products is less elastic than others.

Survival of the fittest. Some businesses can't survive, that's always been true and always will be true.
If an increased minimum wage is the difference between staying in business and going out of business, then that business wasn't adding much of anything to the economy anyway.

barfo

 

Elasticity has nothing to do with it. One of the stores they showed on TV sells maritime memorabilia. They're putting food on the table for the owner and 5 employees. The 5 employees will be looking for work, let them eat cake barfo.

Fit? Fit to pay ever increasing govt. required burdens?

 

This may be anecdotal, too, but we lose businesses like Hooters (a fairly big chain) and local spots that have been here for at least a decade (Moondoggies, China Inn), and where new businesses do open they're tattoo parlors.

I'm not thinking the tattoo parlors are stronger businesses, but the leases are so low they can afford to pay the rent. We'll see how they're able to pay the higher minimum wage.

 

Well, maritime memorabilia shops are a critical part of our economy, so I can see the concern here.

barfo